ARTESIAN SUPPLY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 42, 19 February 1935, Page 10

ARTESIAN SUPPLY

ATTITUDE OF PETONE

AGREEMENT NOT REACHED

Whether or not the City Council will be.able to obtain a supply of artesian water from the Hutt Valley has again become a matter of controversy. The Hutt local bodies allege that the city, in a proposed agreement, is departing from decisions arrived at in -conferences held prior to May, 1934.

At the last meeting of the Hutt River Board the board had before: it an agreement forwarded by the City Council for the board's signature. The agreement provided for exchanges of land, and other matters between the board and the council, but also embodied matter which had been the subject of: dispute between the city and the Hutt Valley local bodies, such as the area to which the wells were to be confined, the amount of water to be taken over a given' period, and the rate of draw-off. As these matters concerned the other local bodies, the board decided to refer them to the Petone and Lower Hutt borough councils for their approval before signing the agreement. . , Accordingly, the matter was discussed by the Petone Borough Council last night. OBJECTION TO A CLAUSE. The Mayor (Mr. A. Scholefield) took strong exception to remarks made by members of the City Council, and said that clause 8 of the proposed agreement between the City Council and the River Board did not agree with a previous resolution of the council—a resolution which had been passed as a result of conferences with the City Council. He. considered the River Board should be requested to eliminate clause 8, which should be the subject of an agreement between the Hutt local bodies and the City Council, as at first decided. ■ ,~ '

Councillor E. T. E. Hogg said that Wellington had come into the Hutt Valley area to take water, and surely the Hutt local,bodies hadia right to see that their supplies/were not jeopardised. What would the City Council think if Hutt bodies proposed to enter its watershed to take water? The Hutt Valley had now a very largo population, but it was nothing to what it would have in the future, and its supplies had to be conserved There had been no delay by Petone in arriving at an agreement with the city. During the last six months Petone had had no communication from the city and Petone's letters had been unanswered. Petone should adhere to its' previous resolution, which read as follows:—"That the Petone Borough Council agrees to facilitate Wellington City Council's proposal to obtain artesian water for the period of' ten years from the Hutt Valley on the cohdition that the Wellington City Council limits itself to take not more than five million gallons of water per day and to confine its boring operations in the Hutt Valley to the 16ft strip at present vested in the Wellington City Corporation, plus that portion of Gear Island to the south of the line of Jackson Street and the pipe bridge and other land south of the pipe track reserve lying between Jessie Street and the eastern side of the Hutt River. The rate st which the water is to be drawn off is not to exceed 312,500 gallons per hour. The whole matter is to be reviewed at the end of the ten-year

period; And that the resolution of agreement is to be validated by legislation." INDEBTED TO RIVER BOARD. The present proposal, said Councillor Hogg, departed from that resolution in important'particulars, and if it had not been for the action of the Hutt River Board in holding up the agree-. ment«the clause would ■ have gone through. The Petone Council was very much indebted to the River Board for its action. , It was now proposed, continued Councillor Hogg, that if the city found that sufficient water was not available it could sink bores elsewhere; that after ten years the city could bore elsewhere; and, thirdly, no provision was made for a fresh agreement after ten'years. Mr, Hogg moved: "(a) That in the opinion of this council the agreement reached between the Hutt local bodies and the City Council should be validated by legislation; (b) that the River Board be requested to have clause 8 modified to provide that if insufficient potable water be obtained in the ten-year period from Gear Island,, the City Council undertakes to bore only in the area comprised in the agreement between the Hutt local bodies and the City Council; (c) inserting a provision that there shall be a further agreement in regard to the draw-off after the ten-year period." The motion was seconded by Councillor D. M. Dickson and carried unanimously. On the motion of Councillor Hogg, a letter of thanks is to be sent to the Hutt River Board. '